


Night Terrors

by Sinistretoile



Series: Hallowe'en [69]
Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 31 Days Of Halloween, Halloween, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Manifestation, Night Terrors, Telepathy, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:27:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22530961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinistretoile/pseuds/Sinistretoile
Summary: The team raids a Hydra base with uncharacteristic ease.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Original Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes & Original Female Character(s)
Series: Hallowe'en [69]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1127573
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Night Terrors

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: 'I don't want to fall asleep. I'm scared.'

When they entered the Hydra base, there was hardly any guards or agents. And those there put up no fight. They practically ran out as soon as they saw the Avengers.  
Capt spoke to the team through the com. “Stark, Wilson, you got anything in the sky?”  
“Nope.”  
“Negative, Capt.”  
“F.R.I.D.A.Y. picking up any transmissions?”  
“No. What’s going on, Rogers?”  
Natasha chimed in. “Nothing.”  
“Don’t give me that.”  
“No really, Tony. There’s nothing. All the agents and guards hightailed it as soon as they saw us. Like they were relieved.”  
“Let’s split up. Barton, you’re on Barnes. Romanoff, you’re on me.” They paused at the first intersection of halls.  
“Rock, paper, scissors for who gets which hall?”  
“You two go left, we’ll go right.”  
“Let’s avoid the hall with the ominous flickering light.” The other three glanced down the hall directly in front of them that Clint had tipped his head in the direction of. “I vote the super soldiers go that way when we meet back up.” Natasha slugged him in the elbow. “Ow!” He rubbed the leather over the spot. “What?”

An hour later…  
“There’s nothing here.”  
“There’s no one here.”  
“We’ve searched everywhere.”  
“Not everywhere.” Clint pointed down the stark hall with the ominous flickering light. They moved fluidly, movements practiced as a unit down the hall but they met, again, with no resistance. There was an electronic keypad on the door, glaring red.  
“You’re up, Nat.” Natasha’s fingertips barely touched the keypad and it turned to green. The door whooshed open.  
“That was fast.”  
“Even for you.”  
“I didn’t do anything.”  
Steve frowned. “Two of us should stay out here in case the door closes.”  
Bucky slung the rifle onto his back. “I’ll go into the room. I’m more prepared for anything in there than any of you.”  
Natasha put her hand on his forearm. “You sure?”  
“I’ll be fine. Steve, you stay with Romanoff. Barton, you’re on me again.” Clint nodded. He did not want to go into that room. But he knew Steve could protect Natasha from anything that might start up the dead end hall.  
As if on cue, the lights down the hall flickered. Steve looked into the darkness. “We’ve got movement.”  
“What is it?”  
“I can’t tell…looks like flickering people.”  
“Like digital zombies.”  
“Like a video game?” Steve looked through the doorway at Bucky, who had Clint’s attention now too. He pointed to the hospital bed in the center of the room. It reminded him of how he woke up…after they gave him the old silver vibranium arm.  
“They’re getting closer, guys.”  
Clint and Bucky dashed to the bed. “How do we make her stop?” Steve and Natasha stepped into the room, just inside the doorway.  
“Wake her up?”  
“How do we do that?” They’ve got her knocked the fuck out.”  
Bucky looked down at the young woman. She was late 20s-early/mid 30s. Her hair was long in spots, shaved to the scalp around electrodes. She had IVs in both arms, running multiple bags of fluids. “Looks like they keep her asleep.”  
Clint grabbed some co-band from an instrument tray. The surgical tools on it were caked with dried blood. “Start removing the IVs.” Bucky nodded, his handsome face in a frown.  
Nat poked her head out. “They’re getting closer, guys.”   
“Hurry up a bit, shall we?”  
“It’s like she’s hooked up to the Matrix.”  
“The what?”  
“It’s a movie from the 90s, Steve.” He glanced at Natasha.  
“Yes, I know I’m old. Fuck.” The group laughed at the lighthearted moment in the middle of the urgency. Her brow furrowed. Bucky noticed.  
“Check the hall.”  
Steve and Natasha both looked out in the hall. “They’re gone.”  
“She can fuckin' hear us.”  
Steve rolled his eyes at Clint’s gratuitous use of ‘fuck’. “Buck, talk to her.”  
“What the hell am I supposed to say?” He looked at his best friend incredulously.  
“Think of something. Fast. Before they come back.”  
He looked at Clint who shrugged and shook his head with wide eyes. He shoved his fingers through his hair. “Ma’am, miss…My name is Bucky Barnes.” The monitors began to alarm. The lights outside the room strobed. Something big thumped in the distance.  
“She knows who you are.”  
“She probably thinks Hydra sent the Winter Soldier after her.”  
Rubble rained down on them as another thump sounded a lot closer.  
“That’s exactly what she thinks.” Bucky began to pull the electrodes off her head. “I’m not here as the Soldat. I’m here as Bucky Barnes. I’m with the Avengers.” Both big things thumped closer. The monitors continued to scream. “We’re not here to hurt you. We didn’t even know you were here. We’re taking you out of this place.” The thumping stopped.  
The sound of metal against concrete drew their attention to the wall. ‘Help Me...’ scrawled across the bare wall in raw, jagged letters. Clint removed one IV, Bucky the other. They’d been in her arms so long, clots had formed around the needles. It took an obscene amount of gauze to stem the blood flow before they tightly wrapped her arms in the cohesive bandage.  
They pulled the sheet back but she was naked. She was also strapped to the bed, not just at her wrists and ankles but also at her thighs, around her waist, across her chest and around her neck. Whatever they were doing to this poor girl, they didn’t want her to move. At. All. All four of the Avengers began to unstrap her bonds, pointedly ignoring her nakedness. Bucky wrapped her in the sheet and lifted her.  
Though still unconscious, she shrieked in ungodly pain. “Stop! Stop! She’s connected!” Bucky laid her back on the bed and rolled her onto her side. Cables had been fused into her body, much like his old arm. Natasha followed the pair of metal wrapped cables, one at the base of her spine and one at the base of her neck to an instrument at the side of her bed.  
“Can we pull them out?”  
Bucky shook his head. “No, it’ll kill her.”  
“So we just leave her here?”  
“No!” Their heads snapped up at Bucky’s sharp, loud tone. “They’ve been torturing her. Can’t you see? They’ve been molding her into a weapon.” He looked down at her, brushing the hair from her face. She whimpered. “Like me.”  
“Like me.”  
Steve looked around the room. “So what do we do?”  
“We take that box.”  
Steve rubbed is hand down his face. “Alright. Buck, you take the girl. I’ll take the box. Barton, you watch our front. Romanoff, you watch our backs.” Everyone nodded. Steve picked the box up at the same time Bucky lifted the girl. They moved as a single unit out the door and into the hall. “Stark?”  
“I hear ya, Capt.”  
“We’ve got a complication.”

Dr. Helen Cho and Shuri stood over the patient, the girl rescued from Hydra, quietly discussing their next step in her care. The door slid open.  
“Sergeant Barnes.” Shuri seemed surprised. Helen wasn’t. He’d visited the girl a lot since they’d rescued her.  
“Shuri. Doctor.” He nodded to the ladies. “Any progress today?”  
“She moved her fingers.”  
“Yes, light tapping.”  
Between Bruce, Tony and Shuri, they had figured out that the box connected to her spinal column recorded her thoughts, dreams…nightmares. Everything that popped into her head. They decided as a group that disconnecting the cables from it would not kill her. They were correct.  
“We were also discussing the next steps in her care.”  
“Which are?”  
“Removing the cables.”  
“Will she regain consciousness?”  
The two brilliant women looked at each other. “We don’t know.”   
Bucky nodded. “She can hear you, ya know.”  
“We know, Sergeant.”

“You’re shorter than I had imagined.”  
Bucky looked up from the book he’d been reading and into the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen. Her voice was hoarse from disuse but it was sexy and he was slightly embarrassed that his cock twitched. “Sorry to disappoint you, doll.”  
She reached for his hand and he allowed her to take it. She squeezed him with surprising strength. “Thank you.” Bucky tilted his head and furrowed his brow. “For saving me.”  
“It’s kind of my job, doll.”  
“Is it your job to visit every day?”  
“Well, no.”  
“Even when you don’t make a sound, I know you’re here.” She sunk into the pillow, seeming to shrink in on herself. “I don’t know what all they did to me. I remember blinding pain. They couldn’t damage my mind, my brain…that’s where my power laid. But they could and did torture me everywhere else.”  
Bucky squeezed her hand. “I’m so sorry they put you through that. We'll try to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”  
“I’m tired.”  
“You should rest. I’ll go.”  
“No!” She held his hand tighter. “Please. Please stay, Sergeant Barnes?”  
“Ok, doll. It’s ok. I’ll stay.” He held her hand until she fell asleep.  
Maybe it was sleeping in the uncomfortable chair every night beside her bed, but he began to have bad dreams…that turned into nightmares…that turned into night terrors. He wasn’t the only one. It spread through the compound at night. They were sure it was an attack. But they weren’t sure how.  
Bucky was a light sleeper. So when she started whimpering, he woke up. Her eyes moved rapidly underneath her eyelids. Her fingers tapped in Morse code. ‘Help me. Help me. Help me.’ Over and over. Her chest rose in a frantic pant, yet her vitals didn’t alarm. They should have. She was in tachycardia. That’s when he heard it. Others in the infirmary waking up shouting or gasping and vital alarms going.  
He frowned. She was the cause but she wasn’t doing it on purpose. The Morse code changed. ‘Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.’ Bucky shook his head. “No.” Her fingers tapped rapidly. ‘Please, Bucky. Help me. Kill me.’ Bucky grabbed her shoulders and shook her lightly. “Doll? Doll, wake up.” She didn’t. Her eyes and her fingers continued to move rapidly, begging Bucky to kill her. “Nurse! Nurse!”  
An annoyed-looking blonde dragged her feet into the room. “Yes, Sergeant Barnes?”  
“We need to wake her up. Now.”  
The nurse’s annoyance became concern as the girl on the bed began to shake. She looked at the vitals. “Fuck.” Two quick steps and she slapped the code alarm on the wall. A siren tone went off, following the announcement of the ‘code blue’. “You need to step back, Barnes.” Before he could move a step, her hand shot out, a vice grip on his flesh wrist, nails digging into the skin. “Barnes, move!”  
“I’m trying. She’s got a hold of me.” He tried to pry her fingers off, but she only held on tighter.  
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The nurse sighed with indignation and moved around the bed. But when she grabbed for the girl’s hand, the other snatched her hair. She screamed as she was pulled back. Blonde hair coming out by the roots. Others rushed into the room.  
“What the hell is going on?!” Screams erupted throughout the infirmary as nightmares became mental prisons of terror. More alarms sounded.  
“We have to wake her up.”  
“She’s doing this?”  
“Yes! But I don’t think she knows how to stop.” The nurse leaned against the far wall, panting. “She’s begging in Morse code, for help.”  
“A shot of adrenaline.”  
“Do it.”  
“Sergeant, are you authorized-“ Bucky stepped up to the doctor, blood running down his hand from her nails embedded into his skin. “Right.” Nurse call lights began to alarm as patients that could come awake did so.  
Bucky leaned over her. “Doll, doll, I need you to calm down.” Her fingers tapped out ‘can’t wake up’. “I know, sweetheart. I know. We’re working on that.” ‘Kill me.’ “No, I’m not doing that.”  
“What did she say?”  
“Nothing.” Bucky held her face in his head. “Doll, listen to my voice. I’m here. Whatever is going on in your head, it’s not real.” The doctor readied the shot. Bucky took a step back. Steve, Natasha, Tony, Clint and Bruce were in the room. When had they arrived?  
“What’s going on?”  
“Do it!”  
“Sergeant, I-“ Bucky snatched the syringe from the doctor and plunged it into her heart. Her eyes snapped open and she sucked in an unsettling gasp. When she screamed it out, the lights flickered. Everyone covered their ears.  
“Put her out! Put her out!”  
“No! WE NEED HER AWAKE!” The vital alarms began to scream as she went into cardiac arrest. Now, the crash team moved into position and began to do their job. The doctor who had hesitated with the syringe climbed onto the bed and began to chest compressions.  
“Buck, your hand.”  
“It’s nothing. It’ll heal.”  
The Avengers looked on in shock and worry as the crash team performed CPR. Her heart rate beeped normal. The alarm choked off. Everyone who wasn’t necessary was unceremoniously removed from the room. Except for Bucky. He refused to go.  
“She needs to be kept awake.”  
“We understand that, Sergeant.”  
“No, you don’t. She’s a weapon. She’s a danger. And I’m the next dangerous thing here so I’m not leaving.” Her eyelids fluttered as she groggily looked from side to side. She groaned behind the oxygen mask. Bucky stepped up to the bed. “I’m here. I’m here, doll.”  
“I don’t want to fall asleep.”  
“Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.”  
“I’m scared, Bucky.”  
He thumbed her cheek below the strap of the oxygen mask. “I know. It’s ok. I’m not leaving you, Mora.”  
Steve looked at Natasha. “Her name is Mora?”  
Nat shook her head. “He thinks she’s a modern kikimora, a nightmare. A destroyer.”

**Author's Note:**

> I can't confirm the medical science or validity that a shot of adrenaline to the heart will wake someone like that. It's a work of fiction. Please don't try that.


End file.
